Alltel Wireless has announced that it has signed a deal with Boingo Wireless that will allow anyone to access to its more than 25,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in the US.

The deal with Boingo means that you can sign in and pay for usage without having to have a contract with Alltel. The rates are $19.99 for a month and $3.99 for one day’s usage. Or if you are an Alltel customer you can subscribe to the Internet Anywhere Bundle for $69.98 per month which gives you Mobile Internet and access to the Wi-Fi hotspots.

Angela Rittgers, director of product marketing at Alltel described the Internet Anywhere Bundle as “a common-sense approach to network connectivity.”

Mobile termination fees are on their way down, with a source telling Reuters that EC Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to publish draft guidelines that will cut the fees by 70 percent.

According to the source, the changes will come in 2011 and, while the EC won’t mandate any numerical caps, it will specify what charges operators can include as part of termination rates, which are expected to end up around 1.5 to 2.5 eurocents a minute.

Reding says that she expects that as a result of the termination rate cuts, consumers’ tariffs will drop. Seems a little optimistic to me - surely some operators will end up losing money as a result of the termination rate cuts and for those who end up better off, there’s no guarantee that they’ll end up putting that money towards cheaper rates rather than their shareholders’ returns.

Blyk has announced that it is hoping to repeat the success it has had in the UK and will be expanding its operation and moving out into more European countries next year. It already told us that it was moving into the Netherlands in January of this year and today it has announced that the next countries it will target are Germany, Spain and Belgium.

The exact details haven’t been announced and the company says that it will make more country-specific announcements in the “near future.”

Avid readers of SMS Text News will have been well-prepared for this news however, as when Ewan bumped into Leif Fagelstedt, Blyk Chief Operating Officer at the Blyk one-year party, he hinted at European expansion. This is what he told Ewan:

“We’ve got a very clear vision,” he shoots, “We’re the fastest growing youth media in the UK at the moment. By the end of the year, we want to be the biggest. Then we want to do it in Europe.”

So well done to Blyk, they’ve done as they promised. If they can take the advertisers over to these markets with them then they are onto a winner. I presume that’s what the choice of territories is partly based on: advertisers who are getting an average of a 29% response rate in the UK have looked at other markets and asked Blyk to get out there. Apparently all three countries have big advertising markets, so it looks like there is room for Blyk to be successful out there.

Blyk’s CEO and Co-founder, Pekka Ala-Pietilä said of the move:

“There is a great opportunity for Blyk in these markets. Our research shows that young people in Germany, Spain and Belgium are interested in the Blyk proposition because they want to interact with brands they like in exchange for free communication.”

If you’re between 16-24 and you live in Germany, Spain or Belgium then look out for more and let us know if you sign up and what your experiences are like.

Obviously Ricky will still be updating us with his BlykWatch articles on a regular basis about what Blyk is up to in the UK. In the announcement Blyk says that it still expanding in the UK and expects to have upto 200 brands on board by the end of the year.

It looks like the axe is about to fall on US MVNO Helio. According to the Financial Times’s sources, Virgin Mobile USA is to merge with the SK Telecom-owned operator, with a deal to be announced as early as this week.

The FT says Virgin Mobile and Helio will combine, Virgin Mobile will issue new shares and SK Telecom will end up holding 20 percent of the new company. We’ve been expecting some sort of union between the two comanies for a while, after both have struggled in the last few years and a combination could give them the heft they need to make a more substantial impact in the US market. Still, bit of a shame to see Helio go - it always seemed like it had more potential.

Today T-Mobile announce a commitment to customers on their £30 per month Solo 30 and Combi 30 tariffs to match any other operator’s offering of minutes and texts - although notably it’s not offered on their popular Flext tariff which provides a flexible allowance to use on either SMS or voice calls.

Described as ‘ground breaking’ it appears T-Mobile are hoping you won’t remember the  ‘Orange Value Promise’ which was offered a few years ago until the point where Orange became so terrified that anything innovative or market-leading would steal their soul.  However, it’s a welcome offering that means T-Mobile customers will always be able to demand whatever the market-leading tariff offers irrespective of who is offering it - what’s not clear is if this will be automatic or whether consumers will need to ask for matches when they notice they’re no longer getting the best deal… Can you guess?  I reckon I can.

While probably a good sales headline what would really impress is if T-Mobile extened this offer beyond voice and minutes - an area where consumers can already cheaply access huge amounts already… So come on T-Mobile… really impress us and extend this pledge to data and roaming costs too… dare you!

A company called Mapesbury Communications Ltd has announced that it has signed a deal with Spectrum Interactive (UK) for the rights to broadcast a GSM service from payphone kiosks.

It says that this will be the start of a new mobile phone service called UK01. According to Magnus Kelly, the CEO of Mapesbury, the agreement is, “an important milestone as it accelerates our ability to launch the UK’s 6th mobile phone network.”

Can this really be the 6th mobile operator? Does having the ability to send out a signal from ‘hundreds’ of phone boxes really mean we can start talking about a national operator?

If you sign up with UK01 they will send you a new SIM card, which once inserted into your phone, and once you are close to a UK01 location, allows you to make calls. There’s not a lot of information on the website, but the advantages of signing up with UK01, are described as:

“When you begin using the UK01 service not only will you be able to make fantastic savings on the calls you make, you will also receive your very own UK01 phone number.”

However, I did notice one very big disadvantage too - “When you leave the UK01 location simply change SIM cards.”

This means no roaming between networks as yet and, from what we can see, a very small network to use. Anyone else want to join me hanging around phone boxes to get cheaper calls?

There was an interesting and upsetting story from The Telegraph yesterday about a community in the West Midlands (the area around Birmingham in the UK), that claims that a phone mast has cause 14 people to die of cancer and 20 others to have contracted the disease.

Firstly, it is obviously very upsetting to hear of any community that has suffered so many deaths and it must be terrible for the friends and families of those that have died.

But was it caused by the mobile phone mast, or just an unfortunate statistical ‘accident’?

It is true there is a mobile phone mast near the homes of these people, but are there other things that connect them? What age were they? Did they work in a similar industry? It seems too easy to blame the phone mast for these things when there could be other explanations. Without wishing to appear unsympathetic, they could have just been unlucky.

On the other hand, is the financial power of the mobile phone operators suppressing information about the link between your handset and cancer? It’s been proven that smoking DOES cause cancer, but for years the big tobacco companies denied it. It’s possible that in a few years time we’ll have similar admissions from the phone companies.

So who should we believe and what should we do?

Here’s another report from The Telegraph from February this year saying that heavy mobile phone users have a higher risk of mouth cancer.

But here’s Cancer Research UK saying that there is ‘no firm evidence’ of a link.

The Cancer Research article finishes with a sensible message about the potential dangers of mobile phones:

“Remember - the most dangerous thing about mobile phones is that people use them when they are driving! You have 4 times the risk of having an accident if you are talking on the phone when driving - and hands free kits don’t seem to be any safer as far as driving accidents are concerned. “

This doesn’t sound good. According to a number of reports, EC Commissioner Viviane Reding is planning to pare back mobile termination rates from 7p to around 1p. Funnily enough, mobile operators aren’t best pleased and have apparently told Reding that if she goes ahead with the cuts, they might be forced to charge customers to receive incoming calls.

Reding’s spokesman told the Telegraph: “Companies could introduce tariffs that made you pay to receive calls, but most consumers will not tolerate this. They will go elsewhere. This is an empty threat from the mobile phone companies.”

Too right. While operators in other countries might charge incoming call costs as the norm, trying to introduce a similar model in the UK years after the mobile market has matured would be something akin to operator suicide. Thankfully, it sounds like a lot of sabre rattling rather than a serious threat.

You’ll remember last week our very own Ricky gave us a brief introduction to ümobile, the Phillipines version of the adfunded Blyk. Time to take a bit more of an indepth look.

The first adfunded mobile service provider in Asia, ümobile is targeted towards 15 to 35 year olds in the Phillipines. Partnering with corporations and brands who want to build relationships using mobile to deliver their messages, Umobile is qualified with advanced market segmentation tools that allows Umobile brands to choose a specific age range, lifestyle, socio-economic class.

Much like Blyk, ümobile provides calls, texts, MMS, surfing capabilities and downloads along with rewards for customers by connecting them to the brands that they care about most.

Benefits for the first ümobile customers between June 1st and August 31st 2008 include:

FREE ümobile SIM
P100 free load for the very month for the next 6 months
Earn rewards for every ad message received
Enhanced communication with Fring (mobile VoIP)
Nationwide coverage
Earn rewards with every ad you see
Mobile broadband surfing
PC calling with Virtual Phone * (coming soon)

ümobile paired up with fring, a VoIP (www.fring.com ) which permits ümobile customers to make VOIP calls, chat and interact with friends all over the world from his mobile to another PC and vice-versa. Using Umobile you only pay for data minutes.

ümobile also launched a self-care website that will allow ümobile customers to get to know them better. It allows you to change your mobile number anytime (first one is free)and as a part of a ümobile customer’s privilege, you can recommend friends to become part of their community. Your recommended names will take 1st priority as far as approvals are concerned.

They will soon be offering a product that allows customers to make calls and send/receive texts via PC to another ümobile account and vice-versa with ümobile’s virtual phone service.

SERVICE RATES
ümobile service rates have been designed with their customers in mind, thus, offering their services at a price level affordable to them. Check our mobile rates below:

Standard Call
Voice Call
ümobile to ümobile P5.00
ümobile to other networks P7.00
ümobile to landline P7.25
IDD P10.00
Video Call
ümobile to ümobile 6.50

FringTM Call
Date Rate P10.00/30mins.

With the world’s biggest mobile market, China, has decided that its communications industry is ripe for a shake up. And what a shake up: the Chinese government has decided to create new, merged telecoms companies to sell mobile, as well as internet and fixed, connections.

As a result of the changes, China Unicom and China Netcom will merge and China Mobile will buy Unicom’s CDMA network, according to Reuters, while China Mobile will takeover China Railway Communication.

It’s an absolutely fascinating series of changes, all apparently aimed at balancing China Mobile’s dominance in the country’s mobile market. Rather puzzlingly, the Chinese government hasn’t put any timeframe on when the changes will happen - or provided that much detail on how all it will all work out. Watch this space.

It looks likes Verizon Wireless has thrown in its lot with mobile Linux - but it’s the LiMo Foundation platform, rather than Google’s Android platform, that looks like it’s got the weight of Verizon’s backing.

The US operator announced last week that it’s going to be taking up the final seat on the LiMo Foundation’s board and will join the likes of Motorola, Vodafone and NEC as members of the Foundation in promoting an open Linux distribution for mobile phones.

However, according to The Register, Verizon hasn’t said it’s will shun Android entirely (a Verizon exec told the site “We do believe that we will also offer devices with the Android OS”), more that they just prefer the collaborative nature of the Foundation to an OS developed and run by a single company.

While Verizon Wireless would be daft to block any particular OS from its shelves, you can’t help but feel it won’t exactly be giving pride of place to Android now it’s dubbed LiMo as its preferred OS. It’s not the first time the question of openness has cropped up between the two either, but previously it was Google banging the openness gong: Google filed a submission with the FCC asking the regulator to make sure that Verizon Wireless stuck to the open access pledges it made after it won a slice of the 700Mhz spectrum in the US auction earlier this year.

What is it about Aussies and the need for speed? A second Australian mobile operator has come out and promised a 42Mbps in the next couple of years. Hot on the heels of incumbent Telstra, Optus has now promised a super speedy mobile network by the middle of 2010.

However, neither Telstra nor Optus has discussed what new applications, if any, will debut on the super-fast network. Still, after all the slow build up in 3G speeds in Europe, it’s good to see a couple of operators not shy about promising tens of megabits.

Currently, Australia is planning a fixed fibre-to-the-node network that will get 12Mbps to 98 percent of the population in the next five years. Meanwhile, Optus is promising to get 42Mbps (admittedly maximum peak downlink) to the same coverage level in less time. This could make Australia one of the few countries where mobile network are faster than fixed in real terms. Wow.

According to German paper Der Spiegel, Deutsche Telekom is considering going shopping and acquiring US carrier Sprint Nextel, with a view to merging it with its own T-Mobile USA.

It’s a fascinating rumour but I’m not entirely convinced that this isn’t just an idle ‘what if?’ scenario from some Deutsche Telekom exec. Granted, for anyone considering an acquisition of Sprint, it’s a great time - the company’s been struggling of late, its share price is down and it could be snapped up for a bit of a bargain price. It would mean a big step up for T-Mobile in the US, catapulting it into the top tier of operators.

But the major reason to say no to such a deal? The tech. T-Mobile uses GSM, while Sprint Nextel uses CDMA and is trying to get a WiMax network up and running at the same time. The integration problems don’t put any acquisition in a favourable light.

This week, through a haze of man-flu, I’ve been thinking about how mobile services and operators bill for their services and why it’s all a bit backwards.

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In the UK at the moment there is a big fuss about bank charges - the fees you pay to a bank if you exceed an agreed overdraft, bounce a cheque or similar. The law says that whilst it is OK for banks to charge fees on these occasions to cover their expenses, they cannot charge a penalty (apologies to anyone with any actual legal knowledge who will probably be wincing at that over-simplification). Campaigners have now realised that it doesn’t cost £30 to issue a standard letter and so the whole thing has gone to the High Court. A lot of banks are beginning to look unpleasantly greedy and unsympathetic to their customers.

Although clearly not a legal issue, I think other service providers - mobile network operators particularly - would do well to note what is going on at the moment though and realise that quite aside from anything else penalising customers for wanting to consume (this does not relate to the consumer’s ability to pay - it isn’t a credit issue) more of your service isn’t going to win hearts and minds…

Take 3UK’s mobile broadband offer as an example - in all other respects an excellent value service, but a typical case. Additional megabytes over the pre-purchased bundles cost 10 pence:

1GB per month costs £10 - effectively 1 pence per megabyte. The excess use charge is ?10 times that rate.

3GB per month costs £15 - effectively 0.5 pence per megabyte. The excess use charge is ?20 times that rate.

7GB per month costs £25 - effectively 0.3 pence per megabyte. The excess use charge is ?30 times that rate.

So the highest monthly-rate subscribers pay a penalty of a 30-times multiple in price if they exceed the bundled amount and this is typical across all the network operators.

Clearly excess use can’t be free - but there’s not a good reason for this sudden hike. It has been argued to be a capacity issue - the operators want to prevent excess use to ensure quality of service for all - but a consumer can simply buy several connections if they wish… their supply is not limited by network capacity.

Certainly pre-paying for service should make it cheaper and guaranteeing to purchase larger blocks of service should provide a cost saving - even my schoolboy economics can grasp that, but once exhausted why should the best customers - those who provide the most predictable revenue streams - be punished for attempting to purchase even more service? Cynically, I suspect firms build their pricing models to scare consumers away from maximising their use of the bundles, which increases margin (AMPU).

So what’s the answer? I think it’s the ‘per month’ element that is skewing things here. Back in the ‘bad old days’ it made sense to bill ‘line rental’ by month, but now we also pre-purchase quantities of service within these monthly payments and there’s no need. If bundles of messages / data / international calling were identified separately they could simply be charged as needed…. Used up the 200 text message bundle you purchased before the next billing cycle? Just purchase another at the same price - it lasts a month too, starting today. It could be a manual process or automatic with the usual ‘maximum spend’ controls to protect against unexpectedly large bills. Firms really looking to attract and retain customers could go further - offering to retrospectively upgrade the bundle to a higher one or allowing it to last longer than a month in low-use periods, but now I just want to have my cake and eat it…

What do you think?

Back in February we posted about Fido, one of Canada’s hugely backward mobile networks. They had finally introduced an unlimited data plan. Finally. Good news, because the innovation at Fido — and across the Canadian networks in general is nothing short of caveman.

:: Cut to a picture of a Fido executive banging his aging CDMA Nokia handset on the head of his colleague whilst grunting ‘CAN U HEAR ME?’ repeatedly in a demented fashion ::

Well a reader has just posted this update showing you just how backward the company is:

Oh and did you know that the new unlimited data bundle is limited ONLY to phones bought through Fido?? I have an unlocked Nokia 6110 Navigator and Fido reps refused to let me subscribe to the new bundle They insisted that I had to buy a locked Fido phone first.

Oh dear. Oh dear me.

Most operators you speak to couldn’t give a toss what handset you’re using as long as you’re paying them (ideally more) money each month.

Demanding you buy a Fido handset in order to benefit from the unlimited data bundle is the height of nonsense.

Telstra has finally received the go ahead from the Aussie government to close down its CDMA network, after three months of waiting. The telco had hoped to close it down in January of this year, after its 3G network reached the same coverage levels, but was prevented by the government.

The country’s communications minister said at the time that Telstra had problems with handheld coverage, how customers were informed about the changeover and issues with how its 3G handsets were being sold. Telstra has now satisfied the government that it’s fixed up all the issues and can shut off CDMA.

While the network was still popular with some users, notably farmers, the vast majority of users had already migrated to Telstra’s 3G network, known as Next G, so it was only a matter of time til it bit the dust. That said, the postponement of the network earlier this year threw a sour note into the relationship between the new Rudd government and Telstra - hopefully the closure will go some way to restoring their mutual appreciation.

Virgin Trains has set its sights on tackling dropped calls for passengers and has teamed up with Vodafone to give travelers better in-carriage coverage . Vodafone said it will be putting in “repeater technology” in the trains to boost both 2G and 3G coverage.

The repeaters will be installed on all 52 of Virgin’s Pendolino trains on the London to Glasgow route by November of this year, and Vodafone says it will improve the rate of dropped calls by 60 percent.

Having attempted to use a data card several times on the Eurostar and found a frightening drop out rate, here’s hoping the repeaters find themselves passing through the Channel Tunnel sometime soon.

More news off the back of the 700 MHz spectrum auction - licence buyers were forbidden from talking about their plans for their purchases until last week - with Verizon and AT&T have announced they’re going to use spectrum to launch LTE (long term evolution networks).

“In the future, AT&T’s 700 MHz spectrum holdings will provide the foundation for deployment of next-generation wireless broadband platforms such as HSPA+ and LTE. While standards for emerging technologies such as LTE are still being developed, these technologies could enable peak broadband speeds of 100 Mbps or more,” said AT&T, while Verizon Wireless is heavier on the facts, saying: “Verizon Wireless plans to launch its LTE network in the 700 MHz spectrum in the 2010 timeframe”.

It’s so good to hear some real numbers being put on LTE rollout dates, but the word timeframe makes me a little nervous - sounds like Verizon Wireless is giving itself a little wriggle room for delays, while AT&T is giving itself all the time in the world.

Just a bit on Sprint and what they’ve got going on. They’re launching a new Samsung Instinct handset that’s entirely touchscreen EV-DO. I’m going to go and find it and have a look. They’ve got the new 8330 Curve from Blackberry, the nation’s smallest USB modem (I wonder if it’s smaller than the Vodafone one I have), plus they’re upgrading their Windows Mobile devices to 6.1 later on this year. Good news for my Motorola Q9, then.

Kajeet, the cellphone service for kids that gives parents peace of mind, has gone live with their GPS phone locator service. Kajeet are the only pay as you go MVNO that offers GPS phone tracking (”GPS phone locator service”).

I’ve been following Kajeet for a while (see posts) and I remember browsing their pay as you go handsets in Best Buy a few months ago.

I met with Daniel Neal, founder and CEO last night at ShowStoppers. I only met him for about five minutes and loved every moment of it. It’s not often you meet a CEO of an MVNO who actually likes what he’s doing or who can actually SHOW you around the service, demonstrating intimate knowledge and passion.

Daniel is living Kajeet, big time. He and his team have created a brilliant service that offers a wealth of configuration possibilities for parents.

Here’s the main configuration screen:

You can change almost everything about each child’s account from this dashboard. There are so many options it’s unreal. For example, you can specify that your child can’t use his mobile phone during the hours of 9am - 3pm whilst they’re at school. BUT you can specify that they can always call your number and other select phone numbers at all times. I like that option.

If you’ve got the GPS add on pack, you can be alerted if your child’s mobile phone is NOT in the vicinity of the school during class hours. Fantastic. You can set a variety of payment options and restrictions — limiting your child’s use from a financial perspective, or setting auto-bill amounts whenever the balance is used up. You can even opt to charge *your* account for all calls made to mum and dad, so that the child can use their balance for communicating with their friends and so on.

The GPS mapping is as you’d expect:

Here you can set options for text, IM, video and the like:

I really like this level of granularity — particularly when you’re dealing with tween/teenagers. Of course, you can simply give the handset, unrestricted, to the child if you want. Since I’m not a parent, I can’t judge on just how I’ll react but I reckon I would like to make use of a service like Kajeet.

Parents amongst us, could you comment?

Three people recently have talked to me about dotmobile. Every time they’ve referred to the service as ‘the student mobile network’ or words to that effect and I’ve always blurted out ‘Do you mean Blyk?’

Turns out there is a student mobile network — an MVNO — by the name of Dot Mobile. What do I know? I’m getting old.

One reader told me that ‘they’re generally hated in the student community’ — something I found strange. I enquired a little more: “It’s because they have stands in Student Unions and can be very harassing, even after you tell them you’re in a middle of a contract.”

Street teams, eh.

I’m sure they’re not all bad at all. The deals look good. I’m going to put them on my list of people to talk to. Have you come across them?

After a lot of digging, I managed to find the right page to work out the costs of calling abroad from your UK Vodafone.

It’s like having a flash back to 1997.

125 pence a minute to call the States from a standard Vodafone connection. More than a quid a minute!

Buy the 2.50/month international call saver option — something I briefly considered — and you’ll only pay 25p a minute to America.

I reckon that’s far too high a premium nowadays.

It’s 30p a minute to call the States from a 3UK handset. No international caller option required. That’s .. well, it’s better than 125p.

How do you dial internationally from your handset? Or don’t you bother?

It looks like carriers have finally lost the battle to keep control of consumers mobile content - according to ABI Research the average consumer gets their content from a mix of places, including the web, their mobile operator and from their own collections.

Of mobile users who watched video on their mobile, the split was fairly even between using websites like YouTube, their own carrier’s video offering and sideloading the content themselves. With music sideloading was the most popular option, with 48 percent of mobile-music listening respondents ripping content from a CD or other music source, while over one third of music-listening respondents purchased music through their operator. Pre-loaded content meanwhile, put in a strong showing, with around 60 percent of mobile gamers only playing the games that came with the phone.

So it’s not all bad news for operators - sure, they’ve missed the boat on some areas, but others are still firmly in their grip. Add to that there’s still a lot of money to be made off data delivery, not to mention ad-supported content, and it’s not such a grey picture after all.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has referred the question of wholesale mobile termination rates - the fee each operator charges another to connect a call on their network - to the Competition Commission after appeals by BT and 3.

The appeals come after Ofcom changed the controls on mobile termination rates early last year, which it said at the time would save operators £400 to £500 million a year and that saving should be passed on to retail customers.

According to The Guardian, the operators are now hoping to get termination rates down to nothing in order to be able to offer all-you-can-eat call plans of the type that have become common in the US. If that’s the case, great. If it saves the operators money, that’s great too - as long as the operators remember to send a bit of those savings our way, as Ofcom asked for.

After it warned the mobile industry last year that mandatory regulation could be on the way if it didn’t clean up its act, Ofcom is hoping to introduce new rules to clamp down on mobile misselling. The mobile watchdog said it was pressed to do so after “some mobile phone companies and third party sales agents are still engaging in unacceptable practices that are against the consumer interest” and receiving around 700 complaints a month.

The regulator is particularly riled about two practices: where customers are given false or inaccurate information when they want to buy a mobile contract; and some “cash back” promotions offered by sales agents where they fail to reimburse the consumer.

If the rules are adopted, it will mean mobile operators will be bound:
• not to engage in dishonest, misleading or deceptive conduct and to ensure that those selling their products and services similarly do not mis-sell;
• to make sure the customer intends and is authorised to enter into a contract;
• to make sure consumers get the information they need at the point of sale;
• to ensure that the terms and conditions of cash back deals offered by their retailers are fair; and
• to carry out due diligence and a number of checks in respect of their retailers.

Anything that adds to consumer protection and confidence in the mobile industry can only be a good thing. Applause for Ofcom.